Circumstances and consequences
by CherylB1964
Summary: A Gabriel in Charge one shot. Samandriel wants to answer prayers but after causing a big Screw up Gabriel personally shows him that it's not exactly an easy job.


**A/N: This is another story in The Gabriel in Charge universe. Samandriel has requested to become a part of the Prayer team to answer prayers for the human's on Earth and well Cas isn't the only one with too much heart. For those who may not know what Powerball is it's a huge multi-state lottery that has huge jackpots available.**

Gabriel was watching his favorite TV channel, TV-Land horror which was showing a slightly altered version of Jaws. In this version Poseidon, Greek god of the sea had run naked into the ocean only to be attacked by a huge Great White shark.

"Um Gabby, sorry to interrupt, but we have a slight problem." Balthazar said.

Gabriel picked up his remote and froze the program.

"Oh Jaws! Is it just starting?" Balthazar plopped down on the couch. "I loved this movie but I don't think Poseidon does right now."

"Mmm? Nope The shark doesn't give a rat's ass that he's the god of the sea, thinks he's more like chicken of the sea." Gabriel said. "So what's the problem now?"

"The Prayer department." Balthazar said. "We just got 17 million angry prayers after the current Powerball drawing."

"So? Most people send up angry prayers after their numbers fail to come up." Gabriel said.

"Um these prayers were from the winners." Balthazar explained. "It seems that there were 17 million winners who all ended up with exactly one dollar and seventy-seven cents as their share of the jackpot winnings."

"I think I can see their point." Gabriel said. "Let me guess, Samandriel said yes to everyone again?"

"Of course, he's too soft-hearted for the job Gabriel." Balthazar sighed. "I know he asked for the chance but he's completely inept."

"I'm beginning to see that. Okay I'll see what I can do." Gabriel said snapping his fingers.

* * *

The busiest section of heaven without a doubt was the prayer department. After all, prayers came in all hours of day and night. While some angels like Gabriel had prayers come directly to them, most prayers came addressed to 'whom it may concern' and these prayers were handled by a team of angels who would sort the prayers into worthy and not worthy.

Worthy prayers were answered although not always as humans would wish. But even if answering a human's prayer positively was not possible, action was taken to help the human deal with the negative answer. Prayers deemed not worthy were ignored. 'Please let me win the lottery' was a definitely a not worthy prayer, unfortunately a certain angel had positively answered 17 million people with the same prayer which lead to the unusually large number of prayer complaints.

Gabriel cringed as he watched the frazzled angels in charge of complaints fielding the influx of prayers from angry lottery winners. Sighing Gabriel made his way over to the angel responsible for the current fiasco.

"Samandriel, do you realize the overwhelming amount of excess work you created?" Gabriel asked startling the young angel.

"Gabriel, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this would happen." Samandriel said hanging his head. "They all sounded so needy."

"I know but we can't say yes to everyone. You have to be able to say no." Gabriel said. "All those people are more upset and more depressed now than they were before. You have to understand what it is that they are asking. They weren't asking just to win the lottery, they were asking to win a lot of money in the lottery."

"But that isn't what they prayed for, Gabriel. I didn't know that." Samandriel explained.

"I know kiddo, that's why you have to learn to read between the lines and figure out what they really want. Then you have to figure out if it is possible or reasonable." Gabriel looked at him for a few moments. "Tell you what, how about I let you help me sort through my prayer list for practice?"

"But you don't answer prayers!" Samandriel exclaimed.

"Sure I do. All angels answer prayers." I may not work the prayer room but I still get about a million prayers directed to me everyday. One of the perks of being an archangel." Gabriel smiled. "Come on, you can help me sort through them all."

* * *

"Wait Gabriel I can't go in there! That's the Hall of the Archangels!" Samandriel said coming to a halt on the huge marble stairway leading up the the gleaming golden double doors.

Gabriel turned around and said "Hello archangel! Of course you can. I'm giving you permission." Gabriel stepped forward as the huge doors swung open.

Samandriel stepped inside the foyer looking around curiously. The first thing he noticed were the statues decorating the hall. Perfect representations of all the archangels starting with Michael and ending with Joshua.. Each statue was an amazing work of art showing each archangel in their vessel while each angel's true form was displayed in all of it's majestic glory, connected to and rising above the vessel. Samandriel was studying Gabriel's likeness.

"Pretty cool huh? Michelangelo carved it." Gabriel noted looking up towards the distant ceiling unable to see the top of his true form." It's supposed to always remind us what we really are."

"Michelangelo? As in Sistine Chapel Michelangelo?" Samandriel asked awed.

"Yep come on kid, let's go." Gabriel said tearing the young angel away from the statues. They started down a long hallway the floor was covered in plastic and Samandriel soon found out why as a man on a scaffold looked down and smiled.

"Gabriel! I'm almost done with this section, I call it 'The Vessels'. What do you think?" The man climbed down to stand next to the archangel.

Gabriel studied the painting. Tilting his head to one side he finally spoke. "Sam should be taller, but great likeness Leonardo."

"I'll fix it immediately." The artist said. "Make the Young Winchester into a giant, right."

"Was that?" Samandriel started.

"Leonardo da Vinci. Yes that was him. The responsibility for all the artwork in this building was placed in the capable hands of the old Masters." Gabriel said. "So on any given day you might run into any number of them. The only place that has more works of the great masters than Heaven is The Louvre."

Gabriel lead the way into a very large comfortable room dominated by a huge television and several very comfortable looking couches two of which were occupied by Balthazar and Castiel. Gabriel laughed as he watch the two playing of all things Space Invaders. "Cas do you ever play any games that weren't created for Atari?"

"Are you kidding? He had a breakdown when I tried to get him to play Mario Brothers on Nintendo 64." Balthazar snarked.

Gabriel smirked as he led the way across the room and opened a door. Gesturing the young angel inside Gabriel pointed to the far wall which was scrolling hundreds of requests a minute.

"Those are all prayer requests directed to me." Gabriel explained. "So here's where you learn how to properly sort prayers. I want you to take all of them that have come in today and sort them into legitimate prayer requests and crap prayer requests. When you're done let me know and I'll double check them and let you know how you did."

* * *

Gabriel looked at the two lists and sighed. He pointed to two prayers from the husband and son of a woman dying of her injuries in the ICU of a hospital somewhere in the state of Alabama. "Okay sit kid. Lets start with why you said this prayer was worth it?"

"She has a family, her husband and her son both prayed for her to recover." Samandriel said. "Her family needs her."

"Well, yeah but," Gabriel said snapping his fingers The two were standing on a playground and a little girl all of four years old was sitting on the ground crying her little eyes out. Gabriel walked over to the little girl and picked her up. The little girl's heart-wrenching sobs quieted as she caught sight of the wings on Gabriel's back.

"Are you an angel?" She asked breath hitching from her sobs.

"That's right kiddo." Gabriel said snapping up a huge lollipop and handing it to her. He sat on a swing cuddling the child in his lap as he lazily pushed himself back and forth.

"I want my mommy." the little girl said.

"I know little one, your mommy will be here soon." Gabriel comforted while Samandriel watched.

"Do you understand why that prayer shouldn't be answered now?" Gabriel asked quietly. "You have to understand that ever prayer you answer has consequences."

Gabriel stood up and sat the little girl on her feet. Kneeling down he pointed to the playground gate where a young woman was standing. The little girl saw the woman and began running toward her yelling "Mommy!"

"They were in an accident, that little girl died before they could get her out of the car. She was here in her heaven all alone. If you had answered that prayer she would still be all alone for Dad only knows how many years." Gabriel watched the mother and child. "Instead of with her mother.

They are together and the family will be alright without them until their time comes. It's not easy answering prayers Samandriel but you asked for the chance. You want to help them, I get it. But sometimes helping them means letting things run their course."

"How do you decide which prayers to answer and which to ignore?" Samandriel asked.

"You have to think about the consequences and then decide if it's worth it." Gabriel said. "You also have to look at the circumstances surrounding the prayer. Tell me if you had checked the circumstances before you placed that prayer in the answer pile, which pile would you have put it in?"

Samandriel looked at the happy child. "The ignore pile."

"Okay now I want you to go through those stacks again and think about circumstances and consequences as you sort them." Gabriel said.

* * *

Samandriel was back at his post in the prayer room. On his desk was a crystal figurine of a little girl and her mother, a gift from The Archangel Gabriel to remind him of circumstances and consequences. All of his fellow prayer angel's had to admit that since the great Powerball Fiasco, Samandriel had been the most conscientious of angels when it came to answering prayers.


End file.
